The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to protection and data loss prevention of data and data storage devices during a fall of the information handling system.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
In the ever-growing mobile society, many of the IHSs today are mobile, notebook-type IHSs. With this mobility, there comes a risk of the IHS being dropped. Hard disk drives (HDDs) in notebook computers are susceptible to mechanical shock and damage from falls, drops or other high-shock events. As should be understood, an HDD read/write head positioned over a data storage platter may crash into the surface of the platter upon impact of the IHS/HDD and either corrupt the data and/or make the HDD unusable. This can result in physical damage to the read/write head of the HDD, damage to the rotating media platter(s), damage to the data storage on the rotating media platter(s) and/or damage to the data in process of being read from or written to the HDD near the time of the shock.
To combat this, some higher-end HDDs (e.g., 7200 rpm HDDs) incorporate an accelerometer sensor within the HDD to detect a free fall of the device. See FIG. 6. Upon detection of a fall event by the sensor, the HDD initiates an emergency routine by communicating from the internal drop sensor to the drive controller via an internally coupled general purpose input/output (GPIO). The emergency routine stores the data being transferred to/from the HDD and parks the drive read/write head. However, having the drop sensor internal to the HDD device, does not allow for the sensor to be used by IHS applications for other purposes, such as for gaming applications. Also, due to increased cost, these integrated, internal sensors have not become common in the lower-end, commodity drives (e.g., 5400 or 4200 rpm HDDs). However, there is a need for free fall protection in all notebook HDD products to protect the data and the HDDs. Also, because a “HEAD PARK EVENT” is generally controlled by a device manufacturer, when a Fall happens, each device in an IHS may behave differently and unpredictably.
Another solution for IHS free fall sensing is to place a drop sensor external to the HDD (e.g, on the motherboard of the IHS). See FIG. 7. When a fall event is detected by the sensor, the system sends a drive “idle immediate with unload” command via the standard SATA communication data path interface to the HDD drive controller. This solution, using a sensor external to the HDD and communicating via the standard SATA communication data path interface is very slow in comparison to the internal sensor system due to communication protocol for the standard SATA interface. For example, the internal sensor model discussed above with respect to FIG. 6 provides a maximum 160 ms response time, or approximately 5″ worth of fall for the HDD to react (typical minimum depends on how fast the HDD device can park). To the contrary, this external sensor system using the standard SATA communication data path interface provides an approximately 300 ms response time. As such, the time interval between recognizing that the device is falling and the emergency response on this system may not perform the drive read/write head park before the IHS impacts a surface if the fall is approximately 18″ or greater.
As should be understood, the intent of the emergency routines discussed above is to immediately move the HDD read/write head away from the data storage platter(s) before the IHS/HDD impacts a surface. Data integrity and mechanical shock protection of a HDD is increased with the addition of a free fall sensor. However, a problem with the system shown in FIG. 6 is that this type of system tends to be incorporated only in high performance drives and the sensor is integrated internally into the HDD, wherein the sensor data is limited to use within the HDD (e.g., the data cannot be utilized in a real time fashion by the IHS for other system level purposes). Also, because “HEAD PARK EVENT” is generally controlled by a device manufacturer, when a Fall happens, each device in an IHS may behave differently and unpredictably. A problem with the system shown in FIG. 7 is that the response time is comparatively very slow and there may not be any protection against data loss in the event HDD falls from a drop height of less than 18″ in a IHS.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide for improved data storage device fall protection, absent the deficiencies discussed above.